


Fierce Invocation

by Mertiya



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Autistic Character, F/F, Homophobia, sort of a song fic actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22428088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Five years ago, Anafenza walked away from the love of her life, because she was afraid, because what would her family say, because she was stupid.  She's regretted it ever since.Today might be her second chance.
Relationships: Anafenza/Narset (Magic: The Gathering)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Fierce Invocation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StubHub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StubHub/gifts).



> for StubHub bc tbh this was just going to languish on my computer forever but she pointed out I could probably hammer on an ending and post it so here we are. thanks so much <3

“Yes, Mother, yes, I will.” Anafenza sighed as she ended the call. “God, I do not want to deal with this anymore,” she said, half to the ether, half to her friend Gvar, who nodded sympathetically.

“Your parents will come around,” he said, patting her on the arm.

Anafenza sank onto her bed. “I hope so,” she said. “It’s all so goddamn stupid. I talk so fucking big about being true to yourself, and it’s taken me five years just to come out.”

Gvar sat beside her and put his arm around her. “You care about your family. That’s not a bad thing, you know.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if I hadn’t chosen them over—” Anafenza choked off the name. “I think I want to get drunk tonight.”

“Good news, it’s your birthday and we were already planning to take you out,” Gvar said.

“Good,” Anafenza said ferociously, tugging at her short hair. “Sounds nice. I could use a good night on the town.”

“Karaoke okay?” Gvar asked, and Anafenza cracked her head from one side to the other.

“Sure,” she said eventually. “I don’t feel like singing myself, but I’ll cheer you guys on.”

“Good,” Gvar said. His voice sounded a little strange, but when Anafenza turned to look at him, he gave her his usual reassuring smile.

~

_Five years ago_

“Narset, I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m—I’m really sorry. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do the hiding, and—my parents—they’d be so disappointed. I just can’t do this to them.”

Narset stared at the other girl, trying to find something to say. If she could just come up with the right argument, she could fix this. But her mind was frighteningly blank, and all that it seemed capable of giving her was numbers. Seventeen freckles on Anafenza’s nose. Ten buttons on her blouse. Five earrings on her right ear, three on her left.

“I’m sorry,” Anafenza said again, a single tear sliding down her nose. “Oh god, please say something.”

Narset opened her mouth again. _Say something_. But what? What could she say? She needed to say exactly the right thing. She needed to, because if she could just say exactly the right thing, maybe this would stop happening.

Anafenza put a hand to her forehead. “Never mind,” she said roughly. “Never mind, I’m sorry, I’ll just—I’ll just go.”

_No,_ Narset tried to say, but it wouldn’t come out. All that came out was a soft breath of air. She tried to reach out to touch her girlfriend, but Anafenza had already started to turn away, and Narset’s hand closed on air.

“Sorry,” Anafenza said again, as she started down the path. “Bye.”

Narset tried again, but her throat and mind were empty of anything but the seconds ticking past. No words, only numbers. Pain rose in her throat as she stood on the path and watched Anafenza walking away, but her voice was gone. _Don’t go. We can make it work. Don’t leave me._ Words buzzing round her head, but none of them were right. None of them would make Anafenza stay. There were tears running down her face, her shoulders shaking, fingernails digging into her palms. _Please_. 

But Anafenza kept walking, and Narset’s voice stayed silent and empty and useless.

~

When Anafenza tumbled out of her van with Gvar, Daghatar and Sidisi were waiting for them. Anafenza spared a moment to give herself the guilty pleasure of admiring Sidisi’s cleavage—if she was going to have all the trouble of being out, she might as well enjoy the perks—and then greeted them with a wobbly wave.

“Yasmin’s already inside,” Daghatar said, smiling back. “She wanted to get a head start on the drinking.”

Anafenza followed the others inside with a sigh of relief as the blast of noise hit her. Music and crowds always made her feel better. She ordered a beer and leaned back, shutting her eyes, listening to the mindless laughter and jokes her friends were cracking. It was nice to be out with them.

“Who’s first for karaoke?” she asked, tipping backward in her chair. There was a sudden silence among the people around her. “What?” said Anafenza.

A sudden beat cut through her question, hauntingly familiar. It took her a minute to place it, and by the time she had, the singer had already started. _“Summer after high school, when we first met,”_ she sang in a soft, quavering voice that was nevertheless exactly in rhythm. Sudden pain shot through Anafenza’s throat, and she jumped to her feet so quickly that her stool went over with a clatter.

She stared up at the stage, as the singer continued, “ _we’d make out in your mustang to Radiohead.”_

The small figure on the stage had her fingers wrapped tightly around the microphone, her face hidden by the hood of an oversized sweatshirt, black hair spilling out the bottom. One foot tapped out the beat as she sang.

It was Narset.

~

_Five years ago_

“Hey guys, this is, um, my friend Narset,” Anafenza said, sticking her hands in her pockets and shuffling uncomfortably. 

“Hi,” Narset mumbled, hiding behind her.

“We were hanging out, so I figured no one would care if I brought her to practice.”

She saw Gvar’s eyes go back and forth between the two of them, caught his gaze and begged him silently not to say anything. “Sure,” grinned Yasmin, as she dragged her beat-up bass out of its case. “Whatever. Oh, Ana, sorry I forgot to text you. Zurgo can’t make it.”

“What?” snapped Anafenza, irritated out of her embarrassment. “We can’t really practice without the drummer, you know.”

“Sure we can,” Yasmin said. “It’ll be a free jam.”

“No, Yasmin, we really can’t,” Anafenza objected. “None of us have a sense of rhythm worth a damn. We’ll fall apart before we get through three bars.”

“Oh, come on, Ana.”

Anafenza was growling and trying to fend off the wave of frustration when she felt a tug on her sleeve. “Um, I play piano,” Narset said nervously. “I’m good at rhythm. Maybe I could help.”

She was speaking quietly, but Yasmin heard her. “Sure, why not?” she said, with a laugh. “You can’t really make us worse.”

Anafenza sighed. She doubted Narset had gone near a set of drums in her life, and she knew her girlfriend was a perfectionist. Oh, well, it probably wouldn’t be too bad. There weren’t too many people here, after all. As long as the noise wasn’t too much for Narset. “It’s going to be pretty loud,” she said. “Is that okay?”

Narset nodded. “I think so,” she said. “I brought earplugs if I need them.”

“Let me know if you need us to stop,” Anafenza said.

Narset smiled at her and nodded. 

“Let’s try the cover,” suggested Gvar. “I know it’s not your favorite, Anafenza, but Narset will have an easier time if she knows what it’s supposed to sound like.”

“Okay, okay,” Anafenza grumbled. “It’s just such a stupid song.”

“What song?” Narset asked.

“ ‘The one that got away,’” Gvar responded, as he fed the CD into his laptop. “Katy Perry.”

“I don’t know it,” Narset said. “What is stupid about it?”

She was still mostly directing her conversation at Anafenza, but neither Gvar nor Yasmin appeared put off by her obvious nervousness, for which Anafenza was thankful. She headed for the microphone cracking her head from side to side. “It’s dumb because the narrator is dumb. If you love someone, don’t let them go. If you have something to say, then fucking say it. Don’t just whine about it later.” After they’d let the song play once, she looked over at Narset, who had slid awkwardly in behind the drums. “Do you need to hear that again?” she asked.

Narset shook her head. “I think I’ve got it,” she said. “Let me just play around with the drums for a minute.” She picked up the drumsticks and began to play around on the drums, lightly at first, then louder. After about a minute, the beat solidified into a recognizable one, and Narset gave a nod to Anafenza. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said.

There was a brief, surprised pause, and then Anafenza pulled herself together. “Okay,” she said. “You can go ahead and start.”

Narset gave her a small smile, her eyes flickering up to catch Anafenza’s briefly in a rare moment of contact. Then she looked back down at her own hands and began to play.

For a sudden, strange moment, Anafenza thought she was listening to the intro on the CD. She tripped over the first phrase, half-expecting to hear Katy Perry’s voice at the same time as her own and was left lost when there was only the instrumental backdrop, but she recovered quickly. The guitar and bass also faltered but steadied a few seconds later.

“Wow,” said Yasmin, once they had finished. “Fuck, you’re good, Narset.”

There was a pause. “Um. Thank you,” mumbled Narset.

“You want a part as a drummer?” Yasmin asked eagerly. “You’re way better than Zurgo.”

There was a longer pause. Narset shook her head quickly. “I don’t do well with people,” she said, her voice getting quieter as she stared down at the drums. “I don’t like performing.”

“Are you sure—” Yasmin started, but Anafenza scowled at her, and she shut up. “Okay, okay. It was just an offer.”

Narset didn’t say anything, which was better than if she’d started apologizing.

“Let’s keep practicing,” Anafenza said tersely.

~

_Follow the rhythm_. “ _In another life, I would be your girl. We’d keep all our promises, be us against the world.”_ Try to ignore all the people she knew were looking at her. Narset was terrified, but she could be terrified later. She could have a damn panic attack or do anything she wanted to do. But not now. This was too important. She wasn’t going to lose her voice this time. _I’m sorry I couldn’t find the words._

She shut her eyes, trying to protect herself from the overabundance of things happening. Already the rhythm inside her was stuttering, but she forced it to stop. Just count. Just follow the numbers. She was good at counting. Maybe she wasn’t so good at singing, or talking, or any of the things she needed to be good at to be a good girlfriend, but she was good at counting. “ _In another life, I would make you stay. So I don’t have to say you were the one that got away._ ” She forced out another breath through the swelling buzz of noise in her ears.

Halfway through the song. She ran out of breath too early, gasped for it, and found herself rushing to catch up, even though her foot was still tapping out the beat in perfect time. “ _S-So I don’t have to say you were—_ ”

There were arms around her suddenly. Narset flinched at the unexpected physical contact, resisting the urge to run or cry. She felt her hand opening around the microphone, but she couldn’t stop it. In a moment, it would shatter against the floor, into three pieces—five pieces—so many pieces—

Another, firmer hand closed over hers, steadying the microphone.

“ _—the one that got away_.” 

It wasn’t her voice that picked up the song. “ _I was June and you were my Johnny Cash,_ ” sang Anafenza. “ _Never one without the other, we made a pact. Sometimes when I miss you, I put those records on_.”

She gasped in a breath, and Narset’s free hand was clutching her wrist. The music was so loud, the beats and note blurring together, and Narset could feel her world closing in on itself. _Sensory overload_ , whispered a soft voice in the back of her mind. But she couldn’t give up now—if she did—

She whimpered softly, and then a pair of hands expertly pulled her hood up and gently covered her ears. This time, she managed to remember to hold onto the microphone. The noise was still there, though it had receded to almost bearable levels at this point. “ _Someone said you had your tattoo removed,_ ” Anafenza sang, and Narset found she was surfacing slowly. If she just focused on Ana’s voice—it didn’t fix the overload, but it helped. Anafenza’s hands helped, too.

“ _All this money can’t buy me a time machine. Can’t replace you with a million rings.”_

“ _No,_ ” choked out Narset. “ _I should have told you what you meant to me_.” She wasn’t singing anymore, really; she was just forcing out the words.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” The music was still playing, but neither of them were singing anymore. Anafenza was looking right into Narset’s eyes. “You didn’t do _anything_ wrong. It was all me. I’m so, so sorry.”

Narset shook her head and put her hands on Anafenza’s shoulders. “I didn’t know what to say. I just let you go. I don’t want to do that again.” It was still hard to make the words happen.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Anafenza repeated. Then, “Do you need to get out of here?”

Retreating into her hoody, Narset nodded jerkily. “Sorry.”

“ _Never_ apologize for who you are,” Anafenza said fiercely, and then her arm was around Narset’s shoulders, and she was steering Narset between tables and people and all kinds of things vying for her attention, getting her out into the parking lot and pulling her sideways to sit her down on a blissfully quiet bench.

“I have no right to ask you for anything,” Anafenza said quietly, “But—”

Narset shook her head quickly, her hands playing with the strings of her hoody. 

“But you don’t care, do you?” Anafenza said quietly. “Narset, I want you back so much it hurts. I thought I’d lost you forever because I was so stupid and so self-centered.” She didn’t reach out to touch Narset again, and Narset was still feeling weird, so she just leaned sideways against her, gently.

“I would like that,” she said, after a few minutes, when her brain decided to make words again. When it became obvious that Anafenza was not going to leave. Not this time. “I would like that very much.”

Anafenza smiled at her. “You’re amazing,” she said fiercely. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world. And I promise I will never, ever leave you again.”

Narset took a huge breath, then leaned sideways. “Let me count your freckles,” she said sternly. 

Anafenza laughed and leaned forward. “Anytime.”


End file.
